


A Thousand Cuts

by BeautifulFiction



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fever Dreams, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:58:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulFiction/pseuds/BeautifulFiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John should be here, the sun to Sherlock's moon, his conductor of light. Yet there were only the tenebrous shadows and a Stygian pit of desolation beneath his ribs.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>Note: Please do not redistribute my fanfiction on other archives or sites such as goodreads or ebooks tree without my express permission. Thank you :)</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Cuts

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: A speed!fic on the subject of fever dreams. Any mistakes are my own, but please let me know if you spot them. Possible warnings for butterflies?  
> B xxx  
> 

His solitary footsteps rang along the empty corridor, beating out the mournful rhythm of a dirge. The walls around him were grey and glassy, shining where the passage of the years had worn the paint through to the bedrock beneath. The floor-tiles had shattered into jagged shards, which dug into the thin soles of his shoes and made every step a new agony.

Speed was imperative, yet his body refused the panicked commands of his mind. His flesh was insensate to the feeling of pursuit – of something dark and twisted following his shadow. Here, there was only one possible pace. A sprint was out of the question, and nor could he bring himself to a halt.

Not until he reached the door.

It was a bland wooden panel, the brass plating on the handle eroded by the grasp of thousands of fingers. His joined their number, gripping and twisting the metal as the whispers reached his ears.

The sound was a distant sea thrashing on the shore, or perhaps the nearby litany of a million prayers falling from the desperate lips of worshippers. There was a papery quality to it, something dry at odds with the first curl of humid, jungle fragrance that filled his nose.

Sherlock swallowed, the rasp of the latch slipping free from its socket unnaturally loud. Yet brumal fear paralysed him on that sealed threshold, birthing quakes along his muscles and a clammy sweat down his spine. 

Whatever chased him – the formless teratism that made the hairs at the back of his neck prickle and itch – faded, replaced by the bone-deep awareness of what was missing from this monotone world.

John.

He should be here, the sun to Sherlock's moon, his conductor of light. Yet there were only the tenebrous shadows and a Stygian pit of desolation beneath his ribs.

John would not leave him by choice. That certainty was Sherlock's only guiding light, and resolve took unsteady root in the hollow of his stomach. He would find the man he was looking for; he merely had to gather the courage to begin his search. 

With a deep breath, he splayed the wide, pale press of his palm to the door and pushed it aside. Golden sunlight shafted through the gloom, chasing off crepuscular shades and making him blink as he stepped forward.

Tropical plants grew thick, their verdant leaves carving spikes of jade and emerald towards the flickering illumination that spilled through a remote atrium roof. The ground was leaf-litter and mulch, fertile with the perfume of new growth. A trickle of water tugged at his hearing, but it was like the far-off chime of church bells in comparison to the roaring susurrus that beat a breeze across his skin and strobed the sun's rays with delicate silhouettes.

A cloud of colour blocked his way forward: a kaleidoscope of hues from brown and mottled beige to vivid umber, cobalt and crimson.

Butterflies. Thousands of them.

Sherlock screwed his eyes up tight, trying to dispel the impossible sight. Migration flocks were known throughout the world, but they moved with purpose; one species finding their way to a home written deep in their instinctual pathways. This was madness and chaos. The common Red Admiral waltzed with the Swallowtail as Painted Ladies danced amidst Purple Emperors. Some were no bigger than his thumbnail, while others were the size of his two hands spread open.

He couldn't proceed. Even without a care for their fragile nature, Sherlock found himself locked in a primitive distaste. There were simply too many, no longer beautiful Lepidoptera in their own right, but a seething, creeping mass as solid as any wall.

The air was filled with the sparkle of the dust from their wings, precious scales they could not do without, and with a hesitant step forward, Sherlock saw the deeper truth. This was not a swarm. 

It was a battleground. 

A _Caligo eurilochus_ , the Owl butterfly, landed on the back of his hand, its wings rent as if clawed apart. It stumbled on damaged limbs, leaving viscous fluid as it lost its grip and began to tumble.

Instinctively, Sherlock moved to catch it, but before he could twitch, the creature's wings wisped with smoke. Their ragged frontiers glowed like embers before the insubstantial membranes caught alight: incinerated.

Like a moth that flew too close to a candle, the creature should have left nothing but a husk, yet what the flames revealed was... impossible. 

Singed wings remained, flightless now, formed from pinions of charred bone like those of a bat. Remnants of the ethereal tissue that had once permitted flight were strung like rope or rags between the supports, rotten to the eye.

Yet it was the thorax that made Sherlock stare, his face pinched. Gone was the elegant, tapered shape of the insect's body and the spindly tangle of its limbs. What had taken its place was chillingly familiar: a sinuous spine, a cage of ribs, jointed arms and legs, all crowned by the tiny, calciferous dome of a skull. Blank sockets stared at him, like the gruesome remains of a discarded doll, but as he watched, it began to move.

Recoiling, he heard a snap below his foot, and bit back a piteous moan as he saw the shrapnel he had created. However, it was far from the only one. The strange, miniature skeletons lay thick on the ground, their useless wings flapping as they dragged themselves over their brethren. Bone scraped on bone as they clawed their way towards him, petite, frail fingers beckoning.

'Sherlock!'

He jerked his head up, craning his neck to try and see through the garrison of fritillary. He knew that voice, heard it every day and night, and his heart leapt. 'John? John, where are you?'

There was no reply except for a strange, high-pitched clatter like the rattle of castanets. Glancing down, Sherlock saw the cause. The skeletons were laughing, their jaws swinging as their teeth – perfect pinhead pearls – rattled like dice in a cup. They had no voices to express their mirth, but it was there all the same, and Sherlock snarled as he strode forward.

They crunched like cockroaches underfoot, raining down blows on his ankles and feet, grasping at his trousers as they tried to bring him down to their level. Desperately, he cast them away, not caring that each kick cracked bone and scattered their articulated forms. He had to get to John.

He approached the roiling boundary of the throng of butterflies, squaring his shoulders as he reached out a hand and tried to press it into the horde. At first it was easy, but within a heartbeat, slices of pain ricocheted along his fingers, burning stings that made him pull back with a hiss. 

Bloody lines sliced across his skin. Crimson welled across his pallor, collecting to drip on the floor below. It was a steady metronome, an underlying rhythm to the cacophony around him, and he stared as a second sanguine splash joined the first on the litter at his feet.

The butterflies calmed, their inglorious dogfight called to a truce as they glided over one another, still an impenetrable myriad, but now there was purpose to their movements. They were an assembling army, and in a flash of insight, Sherlock realised he was the invader. 

Their wings gleamed, edged with barbs and razor wire – the benign made brutal. 

Death by a thousand cuts.

An indrawn breath, an inarticulate shout: a warning for John, perhaps, or a cry of outrage at the madness of what he faced. His confusion and disbelief found raw, visceral voice as the insects attacked, their wings clicking like scissor blades as the human skeletons of the fallen lunged.

'Sherlock!'

He gasped in a breath: cool air like an elixir against his tongue as he bolted upright, wide-eyed and panting hard enough to retch. The sheets were tangled around his trembling body, and the breeze from the open window birthed a new rash of shivers across his flesh.

His throat burned, his jaw aching as malaise twisted in his joints and lower back. Heat and chill fought their war over him, easing only when two warm, dry hands gripped him, gentle and devoted.

'Hey, are you all right?' Capable fingers eased the sweat-drenched curls back from Sherlock's forehead, and he turned to see John knelt at his side, the sheet furled around his hips and his bare chest gold in the lamp light. A pillow-crease marked a decisive frontier across his cheek, and his hair stuck up at odd angles. However, his face was soft and loving, pinched with concern as his lips replaced his hand, pressing a tender, familiar kiss to Sherlock's brow.

'I guess your painkillers have worn off. You're like a furnace. Bad dream?'

Sherlock nodded, leaning into John's stalwart embrace and allowing him to bear his weight. He remembered now, his rasping throat a poignant reminder even if it weren't for John's words. He was unwell, unable to answer the call of the Work as some revolting pathogen had its wicked way with him. Running a temperature and miserable with it, he'd surrendered himself to his lover's patient, boundless care, as always and John granted his mute requests for comfort and sympathy without hesitation.

John shuffled closer, his naked body a panpharmacon to the ills of Sherlock's tortured frame. He did not encroach or invade, merely offered himself: a healthy, strong presence to shore up Sherlock's failing strength as he guided him down into the bower of their bed: a pyre of fever tonight, rather than one of passion. 

He did not demand that Sherlock share the torment of his mind, and nor did he busy himself treating Sherlock's ills, not yet. Clearly, he was aware that proximity and comfort were the highest requirements – attuned to Sherlock's needs after years of friendship and months of intimacy. 

Slowly, he allowed the idle caress of John's hands to peel back the icy cocoon of fractured, glassy horror that encased him. Tender kisses, brimming with affection and edged with the salt of Sherlock's sweat, traced the escarpment of his cheekbones. Yet it was John's glow, the radiant heat of him, vital and idyllic, that eased the frayed edges of Sherlock's nerves. 

With a quiet hum of pleasure and relief, he nudged his nose into the hollow below John's jaw, allowing himself to be held and cherished as murmured endearments washed over him, lulling him back into the healing balm of sleep.

And this time, he dreamt of nothing but the light and life of John, safe in his arms where he belonged.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> B xxx  
> [My Tumblr](http://the-pen-pot.tumblr.com)  
> [My Sherlock Fic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulFiction/works?fandom_id=133185)  
> [My Hobbit Fic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Kingmaker/works?fandom_id=873394)  
> [My Fullmetal Alchemist Fic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulFiction_FMA/works)


End file.
